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Page 27
No wonder there is consternation in the Anglican camp. No wonder that
sermons are preached, and history is re-edited and facts suppressed,
and pamphlets are circulated to prove that black is white and that
bitterness is sweet, and that false is true. No wonder there are shows
and pageants and other attempts to prove the thing that is not. Poor
deluded mortals! It is really pitiable to witness such straining and
such pulling at the cords; as though truth--solid, imperturbable,
eternal truth--could ever be dislodged or forced out of existence! No!
They may disguise the truth for a time, they may hide it for a brief
period; just as a child, with a box of matches and a handful of straw,
may, for awhile, hide the eternal stars. But as the stars are still
there, and will appear again when the smoke has blown away, so will
the truth reappear and assert itself, when men grow calm, and put
aside pride and passion and prejudice and self-interest. "Magna est
veritas, et prevalebit!"
It has been said: "Mundus vult decipi"; the world wishes to be
deceived; certainly the Anglican world does. But no one else is taken
in. The Dissenter, the Nonconformist, and others who have no axe to
grind, know well that "fine words butter no parsnips," and are far too
shrewd to be deluded. Why, even the old Catholic cathedrals with
their holy-water stoups, their occasional altars of stone, still
remaining, their Lady chapels, and their niches for the images of the
saints, as ill befit the present occupiers, and their modern English
services, as a Court dress befits a clown.
That the sublime grotesqueness of the whole contention is clearly
visible to other besides Catholic eyes is clearly proved by the
occasional observations of the non-Catholic Press. Here, again, we
will offer the gentle reader a specimen. The _Daily News_ is one of
London's big dailies. It has a wide circulation. It is representative
of a large section of the English people. Let us select a passage from
one of its leaders. Speaking of the arrogance of the Anglican Church,
which, as compared to the Catholic Church, is but a baby, still in
long clothes, it gives expression to its views in the following
caustic lines. One might almost imagine it were the _Tablet_ or
_Catholic Times_ that we are about to quote from, but, nothing of the
kind, it is the Nonconformist organ, the _Daily News_. It writes:
"The Anglicans may still persist in patronising the Roman Catholics as
a new set of modern dissidents under the old name. It is the sort of
vengeance which, under favourable circumstances, the mouse may enjoy
at the expense of the elephant. If he can mount high enough by
artificial means, the smallest of created things may contrive to look
down on the greatest, and to affect to compassionate his want of
range. For purposes of controversy, the Anglican could talk of himself
as a terrestrial ancient-of-days, and regret the rage for innovation,
which led, not, of course, to his separation from Rome, but to Rome's
separation from him! So the pebble, if determined to put a good face
on it, might wonder what had become of the rock, and recite the
parable of the return of the prodigal to the Atlas Range"; and so
forth. The fact is that every unprejudiced man, who has so much as a
mere bowing acquaintance with the facts of history, knows perfectly
well that before the sixteenth century the Church in England was
united to the Holy See, and rested where Christ Himself had built it,
_viz._, on Peter, the rock. Whereas, after the sixteenth century, it
became a State Church, dependent, not on Peter, but upon Parliament,
and as purely local, national, and English as the British Army or the
British Navy. Bramhall tells us that, "whatsoever power our laws did
divest the Pope of, they invested the King with" (_Schism Guarded_, p.
340).
We dealt in the last chapter with the relation between the
pre-Reformation Archbishops and Metropolitans and the Pope, and we saw
how each in turn swore obedience to the Vicar of Christ as his
spiritual sovereign. We will now conclude the present chapter by
transcribing a typical address presented by another representative
body of men to the Pope, in past times. It is the year 1427. Now
Chicheley, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been accused at Rome of
some fault or indiscretion, so the other Bishops of the province met
together for the purpose of defending him. With this end in view,
they address a letter to Pope Martin V. It begins as follows:--
"Most Blessed Father, one and only undoubted Sovereign Pontiff, Vicar
of Jesus Christ upon earth, with all promptitude of service and
obedience, kissing most devoutly your blessed feet," and so forth.
They then proceed to defend their Metropolitan, and in doing so
declare that "the Archbishop of Canterbury is, Most Blessed Father, a
most devoted son of your Holiness and of the Holy Roman Church". Nay,
more; they go on to testify that "he is so rooted in his loyalty, and
so unshaken in his allegiance especially to the Roman Church, that it
is known to the whole world, and ought to be known to the city
(_i.e._, Rome) that he is the most faithful son of the Church of Rome,
promoting and securing, with all his strength, the guarantees of her
liberty".
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